


Sometimes Turbulence Means Gross Pizza Sauce and Horny Waiters

by zarabithia



Category: Green Lantern (Comics), Justice League of America (Comics), The Flash (Comics)
Genre: M/M, mention of previous Hal/Ollie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 09:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10896930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: Hal puts a lot of thought into that first date, but that doesn't mean the date goes well.





	Sometimes Turbulence Means Gross Pizza Sauce and Horny Waiters

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [ tumblr prompt: "Hal/Barry, with a awkward first date? (Or perhaps Hal trying to be smooth?)" ](http://clarkdoesnteatshawarma.tumblr.com/post/160627028535/halbarry-with-a-awkward-first-date-or-perhaps)

This was not the first date that Hal Jordan had ever had. Of course it wasn't. But it was the first date with Barry, who had been the focus of Hal's day and night dreams for well over a year; the general "whatever happens, happens," attitude that Hal had towards his dates just wouldn't cut it (and let the record state that his attitude always cut it and he never had a problem on his dates.) 

The problem was just that Barry was special; he wasn't going to just be a number that Hal could lose tomorrow if things didn't quite gel the way they were supposed to (or if Barry was immensely turned off by a piece of spinach in Hal's teeth... which had only happened once before.)

So, picking the exact right place to have dinner was a top priority. As it turned out, it was not a priority that Barry particularly appreciated.

"What's wrong with your pizza? Somebody sneak in some pineapple?" Hal asked after what had to be at least twenty minutes of watching Barry first poke, then ignore his - very expensive - pizza. Something was obviously wrong because it was well past dinner time and The Flash had even eaten those nasty tuna casseroles that Clark's mother insisted on making them for holiday get-togethers. That's how much he needed food.

Hal chose to ignore the fact that Barry claimed to love those casseroles; some flaws could not be excused by growing up in the Midwest and loving tuna casseroles were one of them, no matter what Bruce Wayne had to say on the subject.

"No, but they might as well have," Barry claimed and he gave the offending slice a slight poke with his fork. "The sauce is sweet. Pizza sauce is not supposed to be sweet."

"You're as bad as Ollie."

Ooops. That was definitely the wrong thing to say, and Hal knew that the minute that it came out of his mouth. But there was hardly any point in trying to back track, because Barry had stopped glaring at his pizza and was now glaring at Hal.

"Oh, am I? Really? You'd know. How many times have you had pizza with Ollie?"

"That's just a low blow, Allen. And it's ... it's slut-shaming is what it is."

Barry responded by pulling out his phone and texting furiously, which honestly, was not the response that Hal expected.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm texting Dinah to let her know that you are stealing words you learned from her in order to win an argument about how terrible Oliver Queen is."

Well, Hal did the only thing reasonable at such a threat. He used his ring to pick up Barry's phone and deposit it squarely in the restaurant's fish tank.

Barry had it out of there almost immediately, but Hal's point had been made.

"What is wrong with you?"

"I learned the word from Carol, actually. I feel like that's an important distinction."

"It's not slut-shaming. Slut-shaming would be if I judged your entire sexual history. I'm only judging the one. That's the important distinction."

"Whatever." To Hal's credit, he absolutely stopped before he started in on the list of reasons why Oliver Queen was in fact a pretty great sexual decision. Hey, just because he was head over heels with Barry at the moment didn't mean he couldn't appreciate past decisions. "The point was that both of you have a weird hate-on for pizza sauce that's sweet. How that derailed into a rant about my sexual history, I don't know."

"You. You are the reason it derailed into a rant about sexual history. And it's not like Queen hasn't partied personally with John Schnatter, so he can't talk about how terrible sweet pizza is because -"

"Am I supposed to know who John Schnatter is, or is this a private rant about Oliver Queen sucking?"

The way that Barry's nose wrinkled guaranteed that he wasn't thinking about the same sort of sucking as Hal had meant. Hal left that train of thought alone because he wasn't as stupid as some people thought.

"Founder of Papa Johns," Barry supplied.

"You Midwest people love Papa Johns."

"Their sauce might as well be caramel syrup," Barry griped, and for a moment, Hal got distracted by the cute way that Barry absolutely mispronounced caramel, but then Barry continued his rant. "And he's a terrible person who doesn't care about his workers, but you should probably expect that out of a pizza maker who doesn’t know how to make pizza."

"See, that's the kind of liberal commie talk that Ollie would love. If you two would just put aside your obvious jealousy over my dick, you'd be great friends."

"I can agree with many of his political points and still think he's an ass," Barry said stubbornly. "And nobody is jealous over your dick. Do I need to be jealous over your dick? If so, maybe this pizza isn't the only thing wrong with this date."

"Look, I'm not the one who has been having Antonio's attention all night, so you can't be angry at me for not being focused on you."

"Antonio? Our waiter?" Barry actually looked surprised and confused, as if Antonio hadn't been refilling Barry's already full glass, asking what Barry did for a living, and all but petting Barry's suit.

Antonio wanted in Barry's pants almost as much as Hal did, but Antonio and his perfect hair could go fuck himself, because Hal had dibs, dammit.

"You can't be that clueless," Hal argued. "You can't have not noticed."

The look Barry gave him claimed otherwise. And Hal... honestly had no idea how to respond to that, so he was almost grateful when Antonio showed up and proceeded to prove his point once again.

"Here is the bill," Antonio said to Barry, continuing to ignore Hal's existence entirely. "The pizza not quite up to your liking?"

"It's a little too sweet for his Midwestern taste," Hal interrupted irritably.

Antonio continued to ignore him, instead placing his hands on Barry's shoulders. "You deserve sweet things in your life, handsome, but if the pizza sauce isn't quite up to your standards, there are other options."

What the hell was wrong with waiters in Central City, anyway? People in Smallville didn't try to steal your man when they were serving you pie! Although a waitress in Keystone did take Ollie home instead of Hal once, but their lasagna was shit and maybe Smallville was the only decent place in the entire Midwest.

"He has a boyfriend!" Hal said a little too loudly.

Antonio did look at him then, but so did most of the restaurant. Well, that figured. They hadn't noticed when he'd thrown the goddamn phone in the fish tank, but raise your voice a little and everybody noticed.

But fuck them, Hal figured, because his attention was focused on the soft look that came over Barry's face.

"A boyfriend?" Antonio asked, looking at Hal like he'd just claimed to be a magical space cop or something actually ridiculous instead of Barry Allen's boyfriend.

"Yeah. A boyfriend with terrible taste in pizza, but a boyfriend," Barry asserted, and at least Antonio finally stopped petting Barry's shoulder.

"Well, call me when you become an ex," Antonio huffed before walking away and Barry looked down at the bill in his hand and laughed.

"Did he seriously leave you his number? He's not getting a tip at all."

"No less than fifty percent," Barry argued.

"Someone enjoyed getting petted all night."

"Someone enjoyed hearing you use the b-word."

Hal watched Barry remove the card from his wallet and shrugged. "Well... we are, right? I mean... it's only technically our real first date, but we take literal and metaphorical bullets all the time... but then again, literally nothing has gone right on this date."

Hal hated being frustrated. He liked to save that for Clark and Barry.

"You always abandon your plane when you hit a little turbulence, Jordan?"

"Of course not."

"Well then... next time, don't pick terrible pizza," Barry suggested.

"Sounds fair," Hal agreed, and if he was planning on texting Ollie later to find out who had acceptable pizza to fit the "no sugar in the sauce" commandment, he didn't mention it to Barry.


End file.
